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unsafe aspartame must be banned, Roger Williams, MP in UK Parliament, The Guardian

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In 1977 Donald Rumsfeld, now George Bush's defence secretary
but then chief executive of the pharmaceutical company GD Searle,
publicly stated that he would
"call in his markers" to win a licence for aspartame,
the sweetener that had been discovered by chance in Searle's
laboratories, according to Roger Williams in the Commons yesterday.

Mr Williams, MP for Brecon and Radnorshire,
said in an adjournment debate that there was much controversy
about aspartame's safety at the time but
"Rumsfeld appears to have honoured his pledge".
In fact, "the history of the approval of aspartame
puts public health regulators and politicians to shame".

The sweetener is now used in 6,000 products,
from crisps such as Walkers prawn cocktail,
to soft drinks including Diet Coke and Robinson's fruit squash,
chewing gums such as Orbit, and vitamins pills and medicines.

Yet the science on which it was given approval was
"biased, inconclusive, and incompetent".

"There is compelling and reliable evidence for this
carcinogenic substance to be banned
from the UK food and drinks market."

On the day of his inauguration as president in 1981,
with Mr Rumsfeld on his transition team,
Ronald Reagan personally wrote an executive order
suspending the head of the US Food and Drug Administration's
powers on aspartame, Mr Williams further claimed.

One month later Mr Reagan appointed a new head
of the regulatory authority, Arthur Hayes,
who granted a licence for the sweetener. [ in July, 1981]

"The history of aspartame's approval is littered with examples
showing that if key decision makers found against aspartame's safety,
they were discredited or replaced by industry sympathisers,
who were recompensed with lucrative jobs."

The MP said he was using his parliamentary privilege to highlight
"the strong scientific evidence" that the components of aspartame
and their metabolites can cause very serious toxic effects on humans,
and that long-term aspartame use can cause cancer.

Searle had originally submitted a host of studies to the FDA in 1970s
in the hope of getting aspartame approved.

But when flaws were revealed in the science behind another Searle
product, Flagyl, the FDA set up a taskforce to investigate 15
of the key studies submitted by Searle on aspartame.

Dr Jerome Bressler was commissioned by the FDA
to investigate three of these studies.
He had found 52 major discrepancies in Searle's clinical conduct
of the studies, Mr Williams told the Commons.

Tumours contracted by rats were removed before dissection
but not reported; one record shows an animal in the experiment
was alive, then dead, then alive again, then dead again.

MPs were told that because it lacked funds, the FDA submitted
12 other studies to be analysed by a research body that was under
contract to Searle at the time. It declared all 12 studies authentic.

Doubts about aspartame among FDA scientists were overruled
by the FDA's administration and it was given approval.

Many other countries soon followed suit and approved aspartame
on the basis of the same flawed studies, Mr Williams said.

In 1996 a review of aspartame research found that
every single industry-funded study found aspartame safe.
But 92% of independent studies identified one or more
problems with its safety.

Mr Williams outlined to MPs the evidence that the breakdown
products of aspartame include suspected carcinogens and
toxic molecules that damage nerve cells.

But the final nail in the coffin for the sweetener, he said,
was a new, "monumental" peer-reviewed study, that should have
"set alarm bells ringing in health departments around the world".

This vast study, conducted by the Italian-based European
Ramazzini Foundation, demonstrated that aspartame caused
a significant increase in lymphomas and leukaemias,
malignant tumours of the kidneys in female rats and
malignant tumours of peripheral and cranial nerves in male rats.

These tumours occurred at doses that were well below
the acceptable daily intake recommended
by the regulatory authorities in the EU and US.

The public health minister, Caroline Flint,
responding for the government,
said it took the issue very seriously
and would look at any new evidence.

But she added that the use of food additives
was very strictly controlled at EU level.
The safety of aspartame had been very extensively reviewed
many times and the current advice remained
that it does not cause cancer and is safe.

Artificial sweeteners help in the control of obesity, she said.
Acceptable daily intakes were set at a very conservative level.
Moreover, the UK's expert committee on toxicity had reviewed
the initial data from the Ramazzini Foundation and had not been
convinced by its interpretations,
but the European Food Safety Authority
would conduct a review when it had the full data.

The trade associations for confectionery, snack, soft drink
and pill manufacturers and the sweetener industry's
Aspartame Information Service said aspartame had been used safely
for many years and evidence for its safety had been reviewed
and approved many times by regulators around the world,
including by the WHO, the FDA,
the UN expert committee on food additives
and the EU scientific committee for food.

They pointed out that the European Food Safety Authority
has said that "based on current evidence,
it does not recommend that consumers who wish to choose foods
containing aspartame make any changes to their dietary habits".

The compound Aspartame breaks down into three components --
a methyl ester and two amino acids: phenylalanine and aspartic acid,
according to Roger Williams during the parliamentary debate.

The sweetener industry repeatedly pointed out that these compounds
occur naturally in food and drink,
yet that statement hid the complex science that makes each one
harmful to humans when found in aspartame, he added.

In food, phenylalanine and aspartic acid are bound to other amino acids
in long, complex chains of proteins so that they are not absorbed
in a way that could cause damage.

But in aspartame they are not,
and enzymes in the gut can easily split them apart.

Once phenylalanine is released in its free form,
it is metabolised into diketopiperazine, a suspected carcinogen.

Aspartic acid in its free form becomes an excitotoxin,
a toxic molecule that stimulates nerve cells
to the point of damage or death.

The third component of aspartame, methyl ester,
was the most harmful, Mr Williams said.
It is metabolised by the body into methanol, a well-known poison.

In the US, the environmental protection agency
defines safe consumption of methanol as no more than 7.8 mg a day.

Anyone drinking three cans of a drink sweetened with aspartame a day
was consuming about 56 mg of methanol, the MP said.

The public health minister, Caroline Flint,
responded by saying that studies had shown methanol levels
were not increased by the ingestion of aspartame.

Caroline Flint MP is Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public
Health at the Department of Health, including health improvement and health
protection. dhmail@dh.gsi.gov.uk 0207 210 4850
Previously, she was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Home
Office from June 2003 to May 2005, responsible for reducing organised and
international crime, anti-drugs co-ordination and international and European
issues.
Prior to becoming a Minister in June 2003, Caroline was Chair of the All
Party Childcare Group, which she founded;
and was a member of the House of Commons Administration Committee and is a
keen advocate of modernisation of parliament.
She served on the Education & Employment Select Committee from 1997-1999.
In 2003, she joined the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme, completing 29
days of work with the army.
As part of the scheme, she visited Iraq in June 2003, to see the security
and reconstruction work of HM Armed Forces.
A dedicated constituency MP, Caroline has represented Don Valley since 1997.
Caroline is a former local government officer and, prior to becoming an MP,
Caroline was the senior researcher and political officer for the GMB union.
She is a GMB member.
She was educated at Twickenham Girls' School, Richmond Tertiary College and
University of East Anglia.
Caroline is married with three children. She enjoys going to the cinema and
spending time with family and friends.
************************************************** *****

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Any unsuspected source of methanol, which the body always quickly
and largely turns into formaldehyde and then formic acid, must be
monitored, especially for high responsibility occupations, often with
night shifts, such as pilots and nuclear reactor operators.

In particular, the next review gives many recent mainstream
peer-reviewed studies that show formaldehyde,
always inevitably derived in the body from any methanol source,
including aspartame, causes endothelial injury,
ie, diabetic neuropathy -- among the most serious and complex
complications of diabetes.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1263
many studies on endothelial injury (diabetic neuropathy) by adducts of
formaldehyde derived from methylamine from many of the same sources
as also supply methanol (formaldehyde), including aspartame:
PH Yu et al: DJ Conklin et al: Murray 2005.12.04

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1237
ubiquitous potent uncontrolled co-factors in nutrition research are
formaldehyde from wood and tobacco smoke and many sources,
including from methanol in dark wines and liquors, in pectins
in fruits and vegetables, and in aspartame: Murray 2005.12.11

As a medical layman, I suggest that evidence mandates immediate
exploration of the role of these ubiquitious, potent formaldehyde
sources as co-factors in epidemiology, research, diagnosis,
and treatment in a wide variety of disorders.

Folic acid, from fruits and vegetables, plays a role by powerfully
protecting against methanol (formaldehyde) toxicity.

Many common drugs, such as aspirin, interfere with folic acid,
as do some mutations in relevant enzymes.

Aspartame is made of phenylalanine (50% by weight) and
aspartic acid (39%), both ordinary amino acids, bound
loosely together by methanol (wood alcohol, 11%).
The readily released methanol from aspartame is within hours
turned by the liver into formaldehyde and then formic acid,
both potent, cumulative toxins.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1141
Nurses Health Study can quickly reveal the extent of aspartame
(methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid) toxicity: Murray 2004.11.21
[ Any scientist can get access to this data for free by submitting a proper
research proposal.
No one has admitted mining the extensive data on diet soda use
and many symptoms for decades for about 100,000 nurses. ]

Thrasher (2001): "The major difference is that the Japanese
demonstrated the incorporation of FA and its metabolites into the
placenta and fetus.
The quantity of radioactivity remaining in maternal and fetal tissues
at 48 hours was 26.9% of the administered dose." [ Ref. 14-16 ]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1237
ubiquitous potent uncontrolled co-factors in nutrition research are
formaldehyde from wood and tobacco smoke and many sources,
including from methanol in dark wines and liquors, in pectins
in fruits and vegetables, and in aspartame: Murray 2005.12.11

Since no adaquate data has ever been published on the exact
disposition of toxic metabolites in specific tissues in
humans of the 11% methanol component of aspartame, the many
studies on morning-after hangover from the methanol impurity
in alcohol drinks are the main available resource to date.

"Survey of aspartame studies: correlation of outcome and funding
sources," 1998, unpublished: http://www.dorway.com/peerrev.html
Walton found 166 separate published studies in the peer reviewed
medical literature, which had relevance for questions of human safety.
The 74 studies funded by industry all (100%) attested to aspartame's
safety, whereas of the 92 non-industry funded studies, 84 (91%)
identified a problem. Six of the seven non-industry funded studies
that were favorable to aspartame safety were from the FDA, which
has a public record that shows a strong pro-industry bias.
Ralph G. Walton, MD, Prof. of Clinical Psychology, Northeastern Ohio
Universities, College of Medicine, Dept. of Psychiatry, Youngstown,
OH 44501, Chairman, The Center for Behavioral Medicine,
Northside Medical Center, 500 Gypsy Lane, P.O. Box 240
Youngstown, OH 44501 330-740-3621 rwalton193@aol.comhttp://www.neoucom.edu/DEPTS/Psychiatry/walton.htm